SC. Why deck yourself out, when your charm lies in your charming manners? It isn't gowns that lovers love, but what bellies out the gowns.
PHILO. (Aside.) God bless me, but Scapha's clever; the hussy has horse-sense....
PHILEM. (Pettishly.) Well, then?
SC. What is it?
PHILEM. Look me over anyhow and see how this becomes me.
SC. The grace of your figure makes everything you wear becoming.
PHILO. (Aside.) Now for that speech, Scapha, I'll give you some present before the day is out--and so on for a whole long scene.
The quips are amusing in an evident burlesque spirit. Such a scene was easily done on the broad Roman stage, whether it was a heritage from the use of the orchestra in Greek comedy, as LeGrand thinks,[135] or not. In similar vein, clever by-play on the part of the cunning Palaestrio would make a capital scene out of Mil. 1037 ff.[136] A perfectly unnatural but utterly amusing scene of the same type is Amph. 153-262, where Mercury apostrophizes his fists, and the quaking Sosia (cross-stage) is frightened to a jelly at the prospect of his early demise. In Cap. 966, Ilegio, staid gentleman that he is, introduces an exceeding "rough" remark in the middle of a serious scene. The aside of Pseudolus in Ps. 636 f. could be rendered as a good-natured burlesque as follows:
"HARPAX. What's your name?
PS. (Hopping forward and addressing audience with hand over mouth.) The pander has a slave named Surus. I'll say I'm he. (Hopping back and addressing Harpax.) I'm Surus." Many other scenes were doubtless rendered by one character's thus stepping aside and confiding his ideas to the spectators, as for example Aul. 194 ff. and Trin. 895 ff. Often our characters blurt out their inmost thoughts to the public, as in Cas. 937 ff., with eavesdroppers conveniently placed, else what would become of the plot?